Isaac Laquedem

Endorsements IV: the statewide ballot measures, including a delightful monopoly grab

On the off chance that you're waiting for the Democratic Party to make a house call and pick up your ballot, here are my recommendations for Oregon's seven statewide ballot measures this fall.  The first three are not very controversial; the other four have sparked a lot of debate:

Measure 70 would make more veterans eligible for the state-supported home loans through the Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs. Commonly called the "State GI" program to distinguish it from the federal Veterans' Administration guaranteed loans, this has no significant fiscal impact and provides a small benefit to a group that deserves the recognition.  The measure has no organized opposition. I recommend a "yes" vote.

Measure 71 would require the legislature to hold annual sessions, a long session in the odd years (as it does now) and a short session in the even years to deal with budgeting.  On principle I think the legislature should meet less often, rather than more often, but this small reform is long overdue.  I voted in favor.

Measure 72 allows the state to issue general obligation bonds to purchase, build, repair, or reconstruct real and personal property of the State.  The state could issue general obligation bonds at a lower rate than it must now pay for "certificates of participation," the method it uses now.  Try as I might to find a catch in this measure, I couldn't.  I recommend a "yes" vote.

Now for the more lively measures.  Measure 73 would increase the minimum sentences for persons convicted of driving under the influence and certain sex offenses.  Desirable as this might be, the state can't afford to lock up more people without taking funds away from other priorities, such as basic school support. The measure comes without any means of funding (translation: the backers want to lock these people up but don't propose to pay for it).  It's well-intentioned bad policy.  I recommend voting against Measure 73.

Measure 74 would add to Oregon's medical marijuana law by permitting private grow operations to produce marijuana for non-profit dispensaries, which would then distribute it to the registered medical users.  The program has no direct adverse fiscal impact on the state, and might even produce several million dollars of net revenue.  The additional revenue is not, however, a justification for turning medical marijuana into a commercial operation, and I voted against Measure 74.

Measure 75 is the most lovably roguish proposal to appear on Oregon's ballot that I can recall in many years of Voters' Pamphlets.  Measure 75 would allow one, and only one, private (non-Indian) casino in the state, to be located on the former Multnomah Kennel Club site in Wood Village, owned or controlled by the promoters of the measure.  The promoters are asking the voters to grant them a statutory monopoly, wtihout competitive bidding or independent evaluation.  It's bad public policy to grant monopolies without some competitive evaluation to determine the public interest.  I strongly urge a "no" vote on Measure 75, but I'm also sorry that I didn't think of this kind of scheme first.

Measure 76 would continue the dedication to parks and stream restoration of a portion of the Oregon Lottery revenues.  Like Measure 73, this is a worthy purpose -- everyone likes parks -- but it represents a continuing erosion of the principle that Oregon was to use its lottery revenues for economic development; that is, to increase the incomes of Oregonians to the point that they would no longer need to pray for their lottery tickets to be winners.  Put another way, the lottery revenues were to be additions to Oregon's resources, not a replacement for ordinary general fund expenses.  Oregon should be able to pay for its parks system from the general fund and through user fees.  It did so before the lottery was established, and the legislature should be able to do so in all but the very worst times.  I voted against Measure 76.

A chauffeur for Isaac's ballot

I'm apparently less fit than I thought, according to the Democratic Party of Oregon.  Friday someone from the county Democratic committee called and told me that they heard I might not be physically able to get my ballot to the county elections office.  Did I need help?  They would send someone to my house to pick up my ballot.  I politely declined, figuring that the stamp I affixed to the ballot envelope would do the job.  Then Saturday someone from the Kitzhaber campaign called and offered to come to my house to help me mark my ballot.

I vaguely remember an Oregon statute that requires a voter to certify that he or she has not unnecessarily exhibited the ballot to any other person, so I would have turned down the second offer even if I hadn't already voted. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into these two telephone calls, but my conclusion is that the Democrats, and the Kitzhaber campaign in particular, think this race is so close that every vote will matter, to the point that even though they want me to ride on public transit, they'll send a chauffeur for my ballot.

Willamette University apologizes for creating a spam engine

Last week Willamette University spammed the mailboxes of hundreds of lawyers as it advertised an upcoming continuing legal education program.  The announcement itself wasn't so bad; the problem was that Willamette sent to a mailing list it had created, leaving the listserv address in the "TO" field, so every lawyer who responded with "unsubscribe" or harsher words sent his or her message to the hundreds of other involuntary participants.  These were followed up with several dozen admonitions not to hit "Reply to All," which also went to everyone on the list.

Willamette got the message.  Here's what it sent to the lawyers on its list, this time by USPS and not e-mail.  The other side of the card offers a $20 discount on the admission price to the event itself.

 

Endorsements III: A governor for the ungovernable

John Kitzhaber, a Dartmouth graduate and physician who served in the state legislature and then as Oregon's governor from 1995 to 2003, is running for a third term.  He faces Chris Dudley, a Yale graduate and money manager who has never held elective office but is well-known for his former career as a professional basketball player.  Not having any strong feelings about either one, I went through their issue statements to discern what they propose for our fair state.

Dr. Kitzhaber's issue statements are clear and thorough, up to a point.  He recognizes Oregon's financial crisis.  He notes that 93% of Oregon's general fund goes to education (52%), human services (25%), and public safety (16%), meaning that the state's budget can't be balanced without making significant cuts in at least one of these three areas.  He bravely tackles human services, saying that there are four ways to cut the budget here (page 4 of the PDF I linked to above): reduce the number of people who receive services, reduce the number of services provided, reduce what we pay the outside providers of those services, and change how we deliver services.  He then even more bravely says that the state will have to implement all four of those methods, including the two most politically difficult: cut some people off from public services, and reduce the services that we do provide.  But then, on the next page, he recants a bit: he says that he will not allow a department to propose cutting any human services without first getting the written okay from the director of the Department of Administrative Services.  I did not see that he proposed cutting a specific service or a specific class of recipient.

Mr. Dudley's position statements are less detailed than Dr. Kitzhaber's.  He does, however, explicitly say that funding K-12 education will be his first priority (i.e., ahead of human services and public safety) and that he would not change or reduce the income tax kicker.  Dr. Kitzhaber says that he would modify the kicker to have a portion go into a rainy day fund, but would not propose to eliminate it altogether.

Let's be frank: the kicker is extraordinarily bad public policy that has become the fourth rail of Oregon politics (sales taxes having sole ownership of the third rail).  Candidates don't want to touch it.  However, repealing the kicker is the first and easiest step to balance the state's budget.  Mr. Dudley opposes using the kicker money to balance the budget, and he supports lowering other taxes without proposing any revenue stream to replace them or spending cuts to offset them.

Overall I found Mr. Dudley's policies to be attractive but not filling -- a good first effort but not election material.  My visceral response to many of Dr. Kitzhaber's proposals was "Good idea, but why didn't he propose these the first time around?"  I'm likely to vote, rather reluctantly, for Dr. Kitzhaber, but I can't bring myself to endorse either one.

Endorsements II: The state treasurer

Now for the statewide races.  Oregonians are unusually fortunate in this race in having to choose between two well-qualified candidates, Ted Wheeler and Chris Telfer.  Mr. Wheeler is the incumbent, having been appointed in March to fill the vacancy left by the death of the elected Treasurer, Ben Westlund.  Senator Telfer is a certified public accountant and state senator, representing Bend.  Despite their both being qualified and able, it's an easy decision to keep Ted Wheeler as the state treasurer.  Mr. Wheeler has the disconcerting political habit of saying what he thinks about the state budget and the legislature, including his September warning to the legislature to cut up its credit cards and stop borrowing until the recession is over and revenues recover.  We can't afford to have Salem implement Keynesian economics.  I heartily recommend a vote for Mr. Wheeler.

I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the gubernatorial candidates, whom I'll discuss in my next post. 

Endorsements I: No on TriMet's bond request (Measure 26-119)

TriMet's Measure 26-119, its request to issue $125 million in bonds to pay for new buses and bus stop improvements, is where I started this year's endorsement season.  To make sense of the measure I had to rummage about in TriMet's books.

First, the need is there.  Wikipedia's entry on TriMet's buses (more complete than what I could find on TriMet's site) suggests that 251 of TriMet's 660 buses date from the early 1990s.  New buses today sell for about $500,000 each, suggesting that TriMet can reasonably say that it needs to spend about $125 million on new buses.

The question is whether TriMet should be issuing bonds to pay for the buses, or be setting aside a certain amount each year to pay for replacements.  Put another way, is this bond issue the result of TriMet's board and management neglecting their duties over the past 10 years by not saving up to replace the bus fleet?  TriMet's own fact sheet on the measure meekly acknowledges that the board and management failed at their tasks: it says "We had planned to buy buses annually since 1997.  However, economic conditions have not been favorable, so we delayed about half of the purchases in order to offset the decline in revenues and not cut service to riders."  The bolding is mine: this neglect, according to TriMet itself, goes back for 13 years.  The WIkipedia data is more generous to TriMet, indicating that it was buying buses annually, or nearly so, until 2005, and then stopped until 2009.  The years skipped were not recession years, but actually boom years.

Let's look at TriMet's current operations (link to TriMet's annual report, a 46-page PDF, here).  In the year that ended on June 30, 2010, TriMet received $94 million at the farebox, $35 million from auxiliary passenger revenue (disabled transit grants, maybe?), $209 million from the payroll and self-employment taxes, $11 million from property taxes, and $84 million from operating grants, for total operating revenue of about $433 million.  It also received capital grants of about $110 million.  TriMet owes about $288 million on revenue bonds and $28 million on general obligation bonds.  (A revenue bond is a bond that is repaid from only a specific source of revenue.  A general obligation bond is one that can be repaid from anything, one that the agency is required to pay whether revenue comes in or not.)

There likely wouldn't be any controversy about giving TriMet $125 million for new buses if it weren't for the proposed light rail line to Milwaukie, which is to cost about $1.5 billion -- twelve times the cost of the new buses and miscellaneous improvements.  "How can TriMet borrow money for buses," say the critics, "which it needs for daily operations, at the same time that it wants to spend $1.5 billion on a new train line?"  One answer is that out of the $1.5 billion, only $40 million is coming from TriMet's pocket.  Who can resist building a billion-dollar train line at a cost of only $40 million?  Looked at from the taxpayers' point of view, although the line will cost TriMet only $40 million, it will cost state and local taxpayers $750 million (half its cost; the feds are paying for the other half), one way or another.

I believe that TriMet (and public agencies generally) should be budgeting for their operating costs, including replacement of things that wear out, such as buses, from their operating income, and submitting the expansion projects to the voters.  Here, TriMet is submitting its operating costs to the voters and sending the implicit message that it can't afford to expand MAX with the Milwaukie light rail line and also buy new buses to maintain its current bus service.  If it can't afford to do both then it should pay its ordinary expenses, including replacing equipment, before it takes on a new project.  For that and other reasons, I am voting "no" on Measure 26-119. 

Oregon lawyers have a list, and Willamette Law School's on the "naughty" side of it

Willamette Law School sent out an e-mail today to a list that it had compiled, mostly of lawyers, to advertise a program of continuing education that it plans to present in December.  Apparently most of the people on the list had no idea that they were on the list.  Well over 100 of them sent back an "unsubscribe" message -- to the list.  As lawyers' inboxes filled up this afternoon, the messages in response got more vituperative.  Dozens of messages complained about people hitting "reply to all" and were in turn sent to the entire list.  Mixed in with the angry messages were some laced with humor, in particular one from a Portland tax attorney (let's call him "Mr. K.") that started with "Every one of you who wrote 'me too,' or words to that effect, should hire a lawyer before ever hitting the 'Send' button again."  Mr. K. pointed out that the lawyers who demanded to be removed from any and all lists (as some did) were making that demand not only on the hapless soul at Willamette who touched all this off, but also on everyone else who received the message.  Some of those people, Mr. K. noted, might want to remain on some of those lists, as for example his list of lawyers to whom he refers work, and Santa's list of good little boys and girls.  After Mr. K.'s bit of good humor, tempers seemed to subside, maybe because we're getting close to Christmas.  I don't know that his message would have been as effective if this had happened in April.

Judge Talmadge Littlejohn takes the Pledge -- very seriously

A Mississippi judge named Talmadge Littlejohn likes the Pledge of Allegiance.  Fox News reports that Judge Littlejohn likes the Pledge so much, in fact, that he just sent a lawyer named Danny Lampley to jail for not reciting it in court.